The Big Track Your Guide to Nottingham's Waterside Car Free Route
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The Big Track Your guide to Nottingham’s waterside car free route A60 Mansfield R Network 6 (NCN6 i National Cycle v e Arboretum r Shef L e field A610 (M1 J26 e Nottingham Radford n Trent University City Site Victoria St Anns ) Centre ) Old Market Square Tr Lace Market Green’s Windmill Ilkeston A609 iumph Road & Science Centre Trent FM The Park Arena Broadmarsh Sneinton Nottingham Shopping Centre Wollaton University Nottingham New Castle Village Jubilee Campus P 1 Lenton 8 BT 1 Old A52 Lenton Wollaton 2 Inland THE HUB (Nottingham Train Station) Racecourse Colwick Park Revenue P Park & Ride Retail Hicking Park Park Building Notts QMC Games County F.C. Hospital Nottingham Workshop The Meadows NG2 k University l a Meadow Lane w University Park s Lock n Holme e e u Dunkirk Q Nottingham Pierrepont Birdcage walk Lakeside Ri Forest F.C Arts ver Leen New bridge directly connecting the canal Lenton and river paths 1 J25) Toll Bridge 2 rby A52 (M Abbey Notts County De Cricket Club a rd Northern lev County u 3 Foods 1 Memorial Big Track Science 7 4 Hall Park Gardens University Bo Roads/footpaths Suspension Newark, Radcliffe on Trent Tennis Bridge Retail and Bingham Centre Park Tram Imperial 3 Highfields Train Tobacco West Boots 2 Wilford Bridgford Beeston A River Complex 5 2 Park & Ride e an Canal L rd ilfo d (No through rd) W oa Parks R s n e e Qu Clifton 4 Bridge Pub Sat Bains Restaurant 5 Cafe To eNational Cycl 3 t 1 Nottingham Canal Wharfs Chilwell 6 n 1 Mile markers Network) 6 (NCN6 e 2 Trent Bridge & Hethbeth Bridge Beeston r (from Trent bridge) Train Station T 3 Embankment A52 r e 4 Wilford Toll Bridge Ramped access v i 5 Wilford Church R Non-ramped access 6 Clifton Hall Nottingham A453 Cycle parking 5 Trent University 7 Boots ) Beeston Clifton Campus Lock 8 Nottingham Castle P Car parking 5 0 N 0 6 4 A National Cycle Clifton Network 6 (NCN6 To Trent Lock Scale 2 miles (approx) Long and the Eaton Clifton Erewash Canal St Mary’s Hall Leicester & Ruddington Loughborough (M1 J24) Attenborough Attenborough Station Nature Centre Welcome to The Big Track Ten miles of pure walking it could also change your life! and cycling pleasure… The Big Track will help you unwind and go with the flow. You might also You can use the Big Track to get start to appreciate the little things in around the city on foot or by bike. life - like spotting a heron, chatting It goes all the way from Trent to a walker or just enjoying the great Bridge to Beeston Lock, with the outdoors. city centre in between, so you can pop up at all sorts of places, If you’ve used the Big Track before, like the football clubs and cricket there have been some improvements ground, the Broadmarsh Centre, to the track itself - see page 30 for Nottingham Train Station or details of what’s new. We’ve tried to Castle Marina. make the map easy to use, with exit and entrance points marked on the If you want to de-stress - or maybe main and smaller maps, along with lose a few pesky pounds - The Big links to the National Cycle Network’s Track runs past loads of workplaces Route 6. and is a great way of getting to the office. Or if you just fancy a saunter However you use the Big Track - for for a pint or a cuppa, you’re definitely getting to work, to the shops, or just on the right track. The Big Track for a leisurely weekend stroll - you’ll brings some big benefits - making be making the most of what’s on your getting fit and feeling good really doorstep, getting some exercise and simple - and, like the best things in doing your bit for the environment by life, it’s free. leaving the car at home. But beware - the Big Track might not So what are you waiting for? just change the way you get around - www.thebigwheel.org.uk 3 Your body, Your transport system You’re in charge of the world’s dramatically lower your chances best transport system - your body. of heart disease, diabetes and some It doesn’t cost anything to get you forms of cancer. And it’s good for your from A to B and the more you use brain too, as exercise reduces stress it, the better it will be. and gives you more energy. We all look and feel better when we’re There are other ways that the Big moving a bit of muscle. The heart Track could tip the scales in your is the most important muscle in the favour. If you’re 60kg, or 9 ½ stones, human body and it needs exercise a brisk 30 minute walk burns up 150 so that it can pump blood effectively calories and if you’re heavier you use with each beat. Around a third of up even more. people say they would walk more if there were better facilities - and they Cycling gets through lots of calories don’t come much better than this. and if you’re worried that the air near With 7 out of 10 of us not getting roads may be a little stale - don’t be. enough exercise and nearly half of us Car drivers breathe in far more traffic overweight the Big Track offers the fumes than walkers or cyclists - so perfect solution - a ten mile waterside there’s even more reason to get out gym right on your doorstep! and about and enjoy the fresh air. Believe it or not, a quarter of all our trips are one mile or less, which for most people can easily be covered on foot. In addition, three quarters of all personal journeys are less than five miles - just half an hour by bike. Those thirty minutes could hardly be better spent. Just half an hour’s exercise, five times a week, can www.thebigwheel.org.uk 5 The Big Track time trip the history of the Trent Valley Written by local historian Chris Matthews People have always used water for summer strolling - perfect for to find their way, by boat, on ladies holding parasols! horseback or by foot. The Big Track follows some forgotten routes Further west, tall reeds and shallow along the Trent Valley that trace pools remind us of how the Meadows much of Nottingham’s history. would once have looked. There are more macabre reminders of the The Big Track is a trip through time river’s power, too. Within St Wilfred’s as well as space. If you start by the churchyard there is an 18th century canal you can imagine the coal being mortuary, used for bodies washed up hauled from boats at Castle Wharf to by the Trent’s fearsome currents. fuel the swelling town as the Industrial Revolution started. Bleach works, Following the river, as invaders once leather tanners and lace factories did, you reach a Saxon landscape. were built here, all feeding off the Around 730 AD a Germanic tribe water in Tinker’s Leen. The canal also sailed down the Trent and settled on borders the Meadows and Eastcroft a high place they called Clifton, or areas - agricultural names for pasture Cliff Farm. lands where animals used to graze. This pastoral scene became an As you turn back towards industrial landscape after the Midland Nottingham along the canal, local Counties railway cut through it in 1839. industry becomes global in the 20th century with international To the south you can still see the modernist architecture at Boots and remains of the medieval Hethbeth nearby Players. Coming back to the Bridge - low, narrow and no doubt Castle the canal flows with you - a terrifying to cross when the river watercourse which has long served ran high. Along the Embankment the needs of humans, it was diverted you enter the later years of Queen from Lenton by William the Conqueror Victoria’s reign when prosperity to defend, equip and drive the mills of brought new pleasures for the middle his forbidding cliff top fortress. classes who built wide promenades www.thebigwheel.org.uk 7 Nottingham canal wharfs, 1 warehouses & Tinkers Leen Started in 1796, the canal was built to link Nottingham to the coal mines of the Erewash valley to the north and the markets of Grantham to the south. The warehouse of carriers Fellows, Morton and Clayton, now a pub (see Waterfront bars), still has a crane for lifting goods from the boats. Heading south along London Road, the former lace factory, Hicking Ltd, is now an apartment block. Turneys Quay, Fellows Morton & Clayton canal carriers depot, just before Trent Bridge, has been now the Canal House pub turned into apartments too. It was a “At its time the canal provided a great huge leather dressing works that you outlet for the colliery owners. When the could get to by canal, river and road, railways came they saw an opportunity and that’s why they came to the same although only the roadside building still point in Nottingham as the canal” survives. You can see the oldest bridge Andy Smart, on the canal next to Iremonger Road. Bygones Editor M Broadmarsh Cliff Rd a M i d Shopping Centre a l t M m a i l r l P i L a o n n p W h a Collin St a y m A6008 M id S d t k Nottingham l ty Lin Bus Station e A6008 Ci Castle P H i P l l Pe ver Ye Olde ill D r Trip Inn 5 P St 00 anal A6 C Bunneys Bikes T C r Waterfront bars e a n Capital One Sneinton Hermitage r A6005 t t r 1 i S BT n Loxley S British t g t d Waterways o House r n St ion o S tat f S l t 9 i A601 W 3 5 A4 Magistrates L Inland Court THE HUB o n Revenue (Nottingham Train Station) d o n Queens Road R o d A R S w r a o k d u a Hicking d w e m M tle r as i m C y g Building a h e W t r S L P s A6 f e f t i y r N Traff e s 0 ic St h L S n St Crocus St us M W Croc aterw a ay St W A6019 be l y S a t W eadows Way M A 3 s 5 r w y k w M A4 o a ea d r d a W i o g w e s s h f W M f t i a r W y e a h y S P P CarCar Park Park www.thebigwheel.org.uk 9 Trent Bridge & 2 Hethbeth Bridge The word Trent is an old English word for trespasser, here meaning a river that often flooded its banks and changed course.